The Science of Staying:
New data on clinician turnover featured in Healthcare Business Today
Recent data from Lotis Blue and SullivanCotter indicates that while healthcare turnover rates have declined from pandemic highs, this shift does not signal a full workforce recovery. Turnover is a lagging indicator and does not reflect ongoing challenges related to staffing capacity, clinician workload, and care demand.
Data from our recent research entitled The Science of Staying: The Next Chapter in Clinician Retention, which features input from more than 1,000 clinicians across 300 organizations, shows that 80% of clinicians intend to stay in their roles. However, 11% report they are likely to leave within the next year. Among those who have recently exited, nearly 60% cite job-related factors as the primary reason for departure. These findings suggest that underlying drivers of dissatisfaction, many of which are within organizational control, remain in place despite lower overall turnover rates.
The report also highlights that retention is influenced by multiple factors. Compensation and benefits are necessary but are generally viewed as baseline expectations. Beyond that, clinicians place greater importance on elements such as workload, staffing levels, organizational support, and opportunities for professional growth. These factors have a more direct impact on long-term retention.
For health care leaders, the findings underscore the need to look beyond turnover metrics when assessing workforce health. Stabilizing exit rates is only one component of recovery. Addressing the root causes of dissatisfaction – particularly those related to the work environment and day-to-day experience – is critical to improving retention, maintaining capacity, and supporting consistent care delivery.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
Get your hands on the full report!
This innovative research draws on feedback from more than 1,000 clinicians across 300+ health care organizations nationwide to provide the latest look into the psychological drivers behind turnover and clinician retention. It includes insight into 38 different elements of the Employee Value Proposition.
View our on-demand webinar!
During this session, we unpack data and insights directly from this year’s report. This includes underlying factors influencing the decision to stay, consider leaving, or quit, differences in employee value proposition drivers that most strongly predict retention for physicians, APPs and nurses, and key considerations for focusing retention efforts where they matter most.